1501:9-1-01
General provisions.

(A)
Definitions. As
used in Chapters 1501:9-1 to 1501:9-12 of the Administrative Code:

(1)
"Access road" means any road used as
primary ingress and egress to the wellhead, tank battery, and associated
equipment used in the production of a well.

(2)
"Active
underground mine" means an underground excavation of coal or industrial
minerals in any phase of the mining operation which is required to be permitted
by the division of mineral resources management, regularly and routinely
examined by state-certified forepersons, and inspected quarterly by mine safety
inspectors of the division of mineral resources management for compliance with
mine safety laws, including the active workings of a mine, any and all sealed
or unsealed boreholes, shafts, drifts, slopes or any other openings to the
surface, and any and all in-seam contiguous, abandoned areas physically
connected to but separated by permanently constructed seals from the current
active workings where miners are able to work or travel.

(4)
"Applicant" or "person" means a natural person,
corporation, association, partnership, receiver, trustee, executor,
administrator, guardian, fiduciary, or other representative of any kind, and
includes any government or a political subdivision or agency thereof. The
masculine gender, in referring to a person, includes the feminine and the
neuter genders.

(5)
"Annulus" means the space between a wellbore and
tubulars or between tubulars where fluid can flow.

(6)
"ASTM" means
ASTM international, formerly known as the American society for testing and
materials.

(7)
"Authorized
representative of the owner" means any
contractor, sub-contactor or person directed by an owner or owner holding a
permit, to complete any aspect of well site construction, drilling, production,
and restoration.

(8)
"Best Management
Practices ( BMPs) For Oil and Gas Well Site Construction Manual" means
practices, procedures and structures used to minimize accelerated erosion from
oil and gas well site construction and well site restoration outlined in the
manual, dated April 30, 2005, which can be
located at http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/11/oil/pdf/BMP_OIL_GAS_WELL_SITE_CONST.pdf
or by contacting the division of oil and gas
resources management.

(9)
" Best Management Practices (BMPs) For Pre-drilling
Water Sampling Manual" means methods for ground water sampling from private or
public supplies using practices, processes and procedures outlined in the
manual, dated April 30, 2005, which can be
located at http://www.ohiodnr.com/Portals/11/oil/pdf/BMP_PRE-DRILLING_WATER_SAMPLING.pdf
or by contacting the division of oil and gas
resources management.

(10)
"Cage" means a wire, wood, metal or similar
material surrounding a wellhead.

(11)
"Casing shoe
test" means a pressure test conducted after drilling into the confining strata
below a cemented casing string seat to evaluate pressure containment integrity
and to determine the maximum fluid density that the strata can contain without
breaking down.

(12)
"Chief" means the
chief of the
division of oil and gas resources management.

(13)
"Condensate" means liquid hydrocarbons that were
originally in the gaseous phase in the reservoir.

(14)
"Conductor
casing" means one or more strings of casing set and cemented to provide a base
for an air body for diversion of shallow naturally occurring natural gas
including coalbed methane and to accomplish one or more of the following well
construction objectives:

(b)
Isolate shallow
aquifers that provide or are capable of providing groundwater for water wells
and springs in the vicinity of the well; or

(c)
Isolate
groundwater before penetrating the workings of an active underground
mine.

(15)
"Contractor" means any third party engaged by an
owner to conduct drilling, producing, and other operations.

(16)
"Direct notification" means, person to person or
phone contact between a well owner, owner holding a permit or their authorized
representative and a division inspector and/or division field office staff.
Voice mail messages are not considered direct notification.

(21)
"Gas" means all
natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not defined
below as
oil, including condensate.

(22)
"GPS" meansglobal positioning system, which is a global
satellite-based system for determining precise location on Earth.

(23)
"Inhabited structure" means any inhabited
private dwelling house and any public building which may be used as a place of
resort, assembly, education, entertainment, lodging, trade, manufacture,
repair, storage, traffic, or occupancy by the public.

(24)
"Inspector" means the person who has been
designated by the chief under section
1509.03 of the Revised Code, to
administer and enforce provisions of Chapter 1509. of the Revised Code or rules
thereunder.

(25)
"Intermediate casing" means one or more strings of
casing set after surface casing has been cemented through the base of the
deepest underground source of drinking water, but before drilling into the
permitted hydrocarbon reservoir(s) to isolate hydrocarbon or brine bearing flow
zones, stabilize the wellbore, to isolate protected groundwater if encountered
after drilling below surface casing, isolate lost circulation zones or other
potential geologic hazards, or serve as a base for well control
equipment.

(26)
"Lead cement" means the first, typically less-dense
slurry pumped during primary cementing operations to seal intervals above those
sealed by the tail cement and to reduce the hydrostatic pressure of the cement
slurry column at the casing seat while the slurry sets.

(27)
"Liner" means a
string of casing set and cemented which does not extend to surface. Liners are
anchored or suspended inside the previous casing string and may serve the
purpose of intermediate or production casing strings.

(28)
"Manager" means the operator, whether the owner
or not, of a well or wells.

(29)
"Map" means a graphic representation of the
location and size of the existing or proposed objects it is made to represent,
accurately drawn to a scale no smaller than four hundred feet to the inch.

(30)
"Mine string" means a string of casing set and cemented to isolate a mine void,
rubble zone, or a mined seam.

(31)
"Minimum
internal yield pressure" means the minimum internal pressure at which permanent
casing deformation could take place assuming no external pressure.

(32)
"Oil" means crude
petroleum oil and all other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, that are
produced in liquid form by ordinary production methods, but does not include
liquid hydrocarbons that were originally in a gaseous phase in the reservoir.

(33)
"Oil and gas"
means oil or gas or both. The use of the plural includes the singular, and the
use of the singular includes the plural.

(34)
"Owner" means the person who has the right to
drill on a tract or drilling unit and to drill into and produce from a pool and
to appropriate the oil or gas that he produces therefrom either for himself or for
others.

(35)
"Pool" means an
underground reservoir containing a common accumulation of oil or gas, or both,
but does not include a gas storage reservoir. Each zone of a geological
structure and each zone of a geological feature that is completely separated
from any other zone in the same structure or feature may contain a separate
pool.

(36)
"Potable water supply" means water that is satisfactory for
drinking, culinary, and domestic purposes as defined by the Ohio department of
health for private water systems in paragraph (LLL) of rule
3701-28-01 of the Administrative
Code.

(37)
"Potential flow zone" means any zone in a well where
hydrocarbons or other fluids can flow when wellbore pressure is less than pore
pressure and isolation of such zones is necessary to:

(a)
Isolate
hydrocarbons that may be present in testable or commercial quantities;

(38)
"Producer" means the owner of a well capable of
or producing oil or gas or both.

(39)
"Production
casing" means a string of casing set to isolate the permitted hydrocarbon
bearing reservoir(s), and other pressurized flow or corrosive, hydrogen
sulfide-bearing zones not effectively isolated by previous casing(s).

(40)
"Protection of
correlative rights" means administration and enforcement of these rules and
regulations by the chief in such a manner as to afford reasonable opportunity
to every person entitled thereto to recover and receive the oil and gas in and
under his tract or tracts, or the equivalent thereof, without having to drill
unnecessary wells or to incur other unnecessary expense.

(41)
"Rathole" or
"mousehole" means the temporary storage space that is used to store the kelly
or drill pipe while adding a new section of pipe to the drill string at some
rotary drilling rigs.

(44)
"Storage protective boundary" means the line denoting the
outermost protected area surrounding a storage reservoir certified by the
federal energy regulatory commission (FERC), or, absent a FERC certificate, the
boundary as defined by divisions (D)(2) and (E) of section
1571.01 of the Revised
Code.

(45)
"Subject tract or
drilling unit" means a tract upon which a person proposes to drill, reopen,
deepen, plug back, or re-work a well for producing oil and natural gas.

(46)
"Surface casing" means a string of casing set and cemented to isolate and
protect the deepest underground source of drinking water and to serve as a base
for well control equipment.

(47)
"Sustained
annular pressure" means pressure in an annulus between casing strings that is
measurable at the wellhead and rebuilds to at least the same shut-in pressure
after pressure has been released.

(50)
"Tract" means a
single, individually taxed parcel of land appearing on the tax list.

(51)
"Urbanized area" means an area where a well or
production facilities of a well are located within a municipal corporation or
within a township that has an unincorporated population of more than five
thousand in the most recent federal decennial census prior to the issuance of
the permit for the well or production facilities.

(52)
"Underground
source of drinking water" and "USDW" mean an aquifer or portion of an aquifer
that supplies any public water system or that contains a sufficient quantity of
groundwater to supply a public water system, and currently supplies drinking
water for human consumption, or that contains fewer than ten thousand
milligrams per liter total dissolved solids and is not an exempted
aquifer.

(53)
"Vault" means a
structure normally made of concrete surrounding the wellhead, recessed into the
ground, all or portion that is placed below ground surfaces.

(d)
Locating, drilling, equipping,
operating, or producing an oil or gas well in a manner that reduces or tends to
reduce the quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable under prudent and
proper operation from the pool into which it is drilled, or that causes or
tends to cause unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction of oil or
gas; and

(e)
Other underground or surface waste in the
production, transportation, or storage of oil, gas, or condensate, however
caused.

(55)
"Well" means any
borehole, whether drilled or bored, for stratigraphic exploration or for the
production, extraction or injection of any gas or liquid mineral, excluding
potable water to be used as such, but including natural or artificial brines
and oil field waters, sewage, and any liquid used in or resulting from any
process of industry, manufacture, trade, business, or agriculture.

(56)
"Well
integrity" means the quality or condition of a well being structurally sound
with competent pressure seals by the application of technical and operational
solutions that prevent uncontrolled fluid release or migration of annular
fluids into protected groundwater throughout the well life cycle.

(57)
"Well site
construction" means any activity by an owner holding a permit, well owner or
the owners authorized representative to build the access roads, prepare the
drill site location for the drilling rig or tank battery and associated
equipment and restoration of the well site.

(B)
Rules for giving public notice -
adoption, amendment, or rescission of rules.

(1)
Public notices of
hearings to adopt, amend, or rescind rules, to be
conducted by the division of oil and gas resources management, department of
natural resources, state of Ohio, shall be
given
in the register of Ohio.

(2)
At least thirty days notice of the time and place of a public hearing shall be
given by said notice which shall state the division's intention to consider
adopting, amending, or rescinding a rule; a synopsis or the full text of the
proposed rule, amendment, or rule to be rescinded or a general statement of the
subject matter to which such proposed rule relates; and the date, time, and
place of the hearing on said proposed action.